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The job of any distribution maker is to "consumerise" it, so it can be USED, by people who don't care about anything technical but just want to get their work done,
A distribution maker can sell to any of a variety of markets. The most successful distribution is Red Hat which sells mostly servers. The people who buy servers are usually very interested in the technology that they are buying.
The distributor which sells the most to the consumer market is Canonical. I suppose that Canonical would be the distribution most interested in your suggestions.
Your examples indicate a strong inclination to want features as they appear in Windows. The distribution which most strongly supports the Windows look is Linspire. Linspire has never been able to generate much in the way of sales volume.
OK, my next request: I want a GUI way to edit that grub.lst file so I can change what OSes boot and what order etc. (just like during install in fedora).
What's difficult about editing the file? A GUI seems overkill for that.
I dont want it to be AS in windows, I want it to be as GOOD. Sitting there saying "Linux is better" when it clearly isnt in all respects does no one any good. Windows has valid technology inside it (they've been making it since 85 I think ), and if Linux has to compete and actually BE as good or better, it has to have the same.
I personally want both distros - a "hackerly" one, lots of tools, light GUI, AND a proper Windows-ish environment, because it's just necessary sometimes, which I can choose between whenever I want.
While I can see your point - it (linux) can be as good or better (maybe it already is...) without having "the same" features.
A lot of finding things hard or easy depends on what you are familiar with - if you know windows you notice that things are done differently in linux. That does not mean they are not done "as good" - just different.
If you where not used to windows you would not find everything so intuitive there - for an old and simple, but valid example:
Click on "Start" to shut down the thing...
OK, my next request: I want a GUI way to edit that grub.lst file so I can change what OSes boot and what order etc. (just like during install in fedora).
This is still going on? For that one, try Mandriva.
Sounds to me like Windows doesn't work for you. You need to customize your operating system.
As I said above, you should either be doing this yourself (by developing your own distribution) or else submitting feature requests to distros. Check out this site: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/
Alternatively, LQ allows you to blog. I don't see the value in clogging up other people's email inboxes with a statement of what you'd like to see in a Linux distro. LQ forums as I see it are here for questions.
Many of the things you are looking for exist already. I would suggest googling whatever it is that you want to do. Chances are good someone has done it already or there is an explanation of how to accomplish whatever it is you are aiming to do.
I want a PROPER package manager - if I have something that needs another lib, there should be a (GUI) way to say - "get it and all others depending on it". Stuff NOT installed with THAT PM should still be detected (as in, untarring a .tgz) and should be uninstallable from the GUI. (It'll require I think the File Alteration monitor).
You want an idiot proof system which detects and repairs all your failures which occur _only_ because you deliberately circumvent the very good package management already in place?
You want a system you can throw any wrong or unfit software onto - and it would alleviate you from thinking before you do that and instead correct you (and: detect/guess what you might mean...)?
This would essentially be a huge limit on what you can do because such a system would not allow deviating from "its true path" (you could not do anything different than the system allows).
It is eighter not a good idea - or already done.
How is a package manager "proper" only if it does the thinking for you?
I want a PROPER package manager - if I have something that needs another lib, there should be a (GUI) way to say - "get it and all others depending on it". Stuff NOT installed with THAT PM should still be detected (as in, untarring a .tgz) and should be uninstallable from the GUI. (It'll require I think the File Alteration monitor).
Distribution: Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, IRIX, OS X
Posts: 192
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by resetreset
Yes, actually I found out that Dynebolic has it
OK, my next request: I want a GUI way to edit that grub.lst file so I can change what OSes boot and what order etc. (just like during install in fedora).
I haven't tried with Grub, but I believe that Red Hat/Fedora has a graphical utility. Also, back when Lilo was the de facto, the KDE Control Center and Linuxconf both were GUI tools that could configure them. Also, if memory serves, Lilo could be partialy configured from KDM (what to boot to upon reboot). I don't know if it supports doing that with Grub, I've never tried it. I always use vim (gvim in graphical from time to time, or kate) to edit menu.lst by hand. I don't like using automatic grub updaters because I often use custom options that get left out (vga=791 anyone? or in RH/FC, norhgb? or get rid of splash quiet in Ubuntu?)
Distribution: Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, IRIX, OS X
Posts: 192
Rep:
I would like to see an open source flash plugin installed by default in a distribution (gnash or swdec anyone?).
I remember when mp3 support came with distros, but, it's not a hassle to install gstreamer-plugins-ugly and gstreamer-plugins-bad or amarok-plugins-whatever to enable it; nor is it a hassle to go install lame to make mp3s. I've been using Ogg vorbis for a while now, and usually just install ogg vorbis support in windows to play it, but, with the advent of Amarok in windows, I'm using WMP less and less.
Other then flash, I'm fairly satisfied with the level of functionality that the distributions provide (Slackware, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo), and am quite happy to tweak some settings by hand to max out performance/functionality (you know, I found out that I can tweak the r128 driver quite nicely in Xorg.conf so that I can add about 150FPS in glxgears to my ATI Rage Mobility M4. Now it outperforms OpenGL/DirectX rendering in Windows in any of OpenSolaris/Fedora/Ubuntu).
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